


All That's Left To Chart

by wren



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cover Art, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Kidfic, Light Angst, Nightmares, Parenthood, Post Origins, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, shameful displays of domesticity, who needs a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5166542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wren/pseuds/wren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets and drabbles featuring Grey Warden Derry Aeducan, Alistair, and their family set in Feoplepeel's Champion's Coffer/Singing Stone AUverse (presented in no particular order)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FeoplePeel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/gifts).



> Loving the Hero of Ferelden isn't the easiest thing in the world, but the Warden Alistair wouldn't have it any other way. Now, six years after getting the girl and helping save Thedas, an unexpected and terrifying new challenge appears: impending fatherhood.
> 
> Gift fic written for the wonderful Feoplepeel while she was deep in the midst of writing [Singing Stone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4257390/chapters/9636288) (the AUverse where the fruits of this particular union appear) and my own insatiable desire to see these two dorks have a happy ending. Many thanks to her for giving Emery a best friend, and me all the encouragement, support, and friendship a girl could ask for. And to [Spirrum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4257390/chapters/9636288), who's enthusiastic squealing helped convince me to post this. Thank you! Art is by the amazingly lovely [SketchingSparrow](http://sketchingsparrow.tumblr.com) who always draws Derry perfectly.
> 
> All mistakes are mine and mine alone, as is the extreme lack of plot and shameful fluffiness.

The footsteps were heavier now, the center of balance shifted, but still familiar enough that he didn’t bother turning around.

“Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder.

“When am I not?” Derry griped, a hint of a pout in her voice. “Ancestors, I thought the infamous Warden appetite was bad enough. But a pregnant Warden? I suspect I will eat us all out of house and home before this is over. Will you still love me when I’m as big as the Keep?” Alistair straightened from his slouch over the counter to lean his hip against the edge instead, watching as Derry stifled a yawn. Barefoot, red hair tousled around her face, she looked impossibly sweet and small, and when she stretched, the hem of her sleep shirt rose, exposing the deep curve of her stomach. “Why are you up?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Thought a snack might help, but…” He shrugged. It wouldn’t do to worry her; he worried plenty enough for the both of them after all. _The problem is she reads you too bloody well, doesn’t she?_

Derry gave a low hum. “Couldn’t sleep, hm?” She paused, eyes trailing over his face for a long moment before nodding toward the high counter. “Help me up, I’m so clumsy these days I’ll probably fall on my face if I try myself.” Alistair snorted, but braced his hands on her hips, lifting her to perch awkwardly on the counter top with legs splayed to accommodate the growing weight of her belly.

“Just one of those things,” he answered, giving her a pointed look before sliding his plate over toward her. “People prepare food on this counter, you know.”

She rolled her eyes and popped a slice of apple into her mouth. “I’m not giving birth on the sodding thing, I’m just sitting.” Derry cocked her head to the side and reached out, sliding fingertips across the back of his hand. “Is everything alright? You don’t look so good.”

“It’s nothing. A bad dream.”

“A bad dream, or a nightmare?” she asked, stressing the last word with careful, significant emphasis.

“Just a regular old dream, my love. I swear it.” He met her worried eyes, luminous in the faint light, and gave her a rueful smile. Derry hesitated, grabbed another apple slice, and glanced up at him through her lashes. Her face was rounder now, softer, but the steely determination underneath was still the same.

“Okay,” she finally said, slowly and thoughtfully. “A nightmare. Bad enough to chase you all the way to the kitchens.”

“I was coming back. You weren’t supposed to know I’d even been gone.” He'd been banking on it, in fact. It hadn’t been the first time he found himself wandering the kitchens in the last six months, merely the first he’d been caught at it. Much to Derry’s annoyance, she tired easily these days and tended to drop into sleep the second her head hit the pillow.

“Yes, well, your child has taken up permanent residency on my bladder.” She poked at her stomach and sighed, kicking out a leg to study her toes. “You realize I haven’t seen my feet, my actual feet, in nearly two months? Stone’s blood, I swear I had ankles once.”

“They’re still there, I promise you.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, won’t I?” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look. “So what was the nightmare about?” Alistair groaned inwardly. Derry may have been brought up amongst the stone walls and caverns of Orzammar nobility, but she had all the tenacity of a Ferelden-born fishwife when she was of a mind. He loved her, Maker knew he did, passionately and without end but she was like a mabari with a bone - only her dog knew when to _give up_.

“It was nothing. A silly dream,” he answered in a light voice that fooled nobody.

“A simple bad dream, you shake off and go back to sleep. We know what nightmares really are, Alistair. What is it?” He was silent, picking up another apple and carefully started peeling it, the skin curling onto the counter. “ _Alistair_.”

“It’s stupid.”

“I doubt it.”

_Oh hells, you’ve already lost this one, haven’t you?_ He put the apple and the knife down and rested his elbows against the cool stone, keeping his eyes on his hands. “I never had a family. Not really.”

“Ah,” Derry said softly, scooting closer to him. “One of those bad dreams.” She touched fingertips to the underside of his jaw and turned his face toward her.

“What do I really know about being a father, Derry?”

“About as much as I do about being a mother, I suppose: not a whole damn lot.” She smiled gently at him, moving her hand to smooth the furrow between his eyes.

“It’s stupid. It wasn’t even scary, not really,” he warned.

“Go on...”

“It was...an empty cradle. And just…” He shook his head. “Maker, it sounds even stupider when I say it out loud. It was just an empty cradle. An ordinary cradle with nothing in it. Nothing more threatening than that.”

“Nothing in it at all?”

“A blanket, I suppose, a pillow.” He ducked his head and picked up the knife once more, busying himself with slicing the apple into pieces, depositing them carefully on his abandoned plate. “It was just...empty. Cold. Like…” He let out a sharp breath. “Like something had been there, but wasn’t anymore. Unsettling, though I couldn’t begin to tell you why.”

“ _Oh_.” She pulled the knife from his hands and set it aside before grabbing his arm and tugging him in front of her, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. The pad of her calloused thumb swept along the sharp line of his cheekbone soothingly. “I don’t know, that sounds pretty scary to me.”

Alistair made a face, curling his hands around hers. “You have more than enough to deal with already without me dumping my ridiculous nightmares on you as well.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips whisper-light over his.

"What's stupid is you trying to hide all this from me. Which is laughable at best because you have the absolutely worst poker face in the history of Thedas."

"Hey!"

"It's terrible, and you know it."

"The way you and Zevran cheat, it wouldn't even matter if I could keep a straight face." Alistair brushed his nose against hers. "I'm not hiding anything, Derry. I'm just..."

"Trying to protect me. I appreciate it, I honestly do, but being pregnant hasn't made me any less me, Alistair. I might be cranky and clumsy and slow and absolutely enormous--"

"You're beautiful!" he protested.

"But," she continued pointedly, "I'm not quite as fragile as spun glass yet. I'm scared too. You don't have to keep that from me, it's easier knowing you are as well. You- _ouch_." Derry winced.

"What's wrong?" She waved off his panicked tone and rubbed lightly over the swell under her nightshirt.

"Ugh. This kid doesn't have the proper respect for my organs that I would like." She gave him a weak smile, wincing again when the baby kicked. "Looks like the whole family is awake now." His face lit up, something of a relief from the morose expression he'd had since she found him here.

"Where?" She pressed his hand over the worst of the movement and leaned back on her hands. He gave a little huff of laughter, palm rubbing soothingly over her belly. "Already giving your mother grief? Go back to sleep, little one." Derry lifted her brows at him.

"Back to sleep for all of us. Effective immediately. Get me off this thing, my back is killing me." He helped her down, steadying her when she swayed on her feet and hiding a grin as she mumbled a curse under her breath.

***

Once safely tucked back under the covers of their bed and Derry arranged as comfortably as possible, Alistair stroked gentle fingers along the small of her back as she settled her cheek against his shoulder.

"We haven't exactly talked names yet, you know." Alistair had been hesitant to bring it up. In the beginning no one had been sure if Derry would even get to this point - it seemed too much like tempting fate to plan too far in advance. For a pair of Tainted wardens, picking out a name had been simply too optimistic. But six months gone, it was undeniable; almost miraculous. Something small and bright and wonderful. Now, their child ( _their child_ , blessed Andraste how strange and terrifying and magnificent was that?) needed a name.

"I..." Derry's voice trailed off for a moment. "I suppose we haven't. Did-Did you have anything in mind?"

"Well. I mean, there's always the obvious I guess, for a boy," he said skeptically.

"What, you mean Endrin or Maric?" She gave a bark of laughter and he could feel her shake her head. "I think we've both had enough of royalty to last several lifetimes."

"I suppose living up to a name isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This little one’s mother is already the Hero of Ferelden, who needs kings?" He shifted his hand, sliding a little farther up her spine. "But what else then? Did you not imagine what your future children would be called when you were a wee little dwarfling?" he teased, squirming when her elbow caught him in the ribs.

"I did not imagine children at all." She glanced up from where her head lay against his shoulder, mouth drawing up in a crooked, sardonic little smile. "I was always meant for the darkspawn. I think my ability to slice through hurlock was of more value than my maternal instinct.”

“Small thinking, that. The recruits have never been more terrified of another person than they are of you right now.”

“Ah yes, what are a horde of darkspawn to a pregnant woman’s mood swings.” Derry snorted. “I think they’re more scared that I’ll either burst into tears or go into labor in front of their eyes.”

“Keeps them on their toes, dear.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and let his eyes slip closed.

"I do like Emery, for a girl."

He opened his eyes again. “Hn." Alistair tested out the name, the syllables rolling off his tongue. "Emery. Emmy."

She was quiet for a long moment. "Would you be very disappointed if it _were_ a girl?" Derry finally asked, voice carefully neutral.

"Disappointed? Why would I be disappointed?"

"It just seems as though it's every man's desire to have a son. A _legacy_."

"Derry, my father's legacy was getting some servant girl pregnant and then getting himself killed. Not exactly the example I care to follow. I will be as happy with a girl as I would with a boy, I promise you." He splayed his hand across her stomach. "Beside, I quite like the idea of being surrounded by beautiful Aeducan women for the rest of my days." Derry hooked a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a lingering kiss.

"You are already a better father than you realize," she whispered against his mouth.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derry was not made for bed rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every thanks and all the love to [theherocomplex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/pseuds/theherocomplex) who is solely to blame for this, as I inadvertently turned a sweet, silly little email she'd sent me into the cavity-inducing fluff you find before you. <3 Many thanks to [spirrum](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum), [ponacopuck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponaco/pseuds/Ponaco), and [itsmyfreakin](http://itsmyfreakin.tumblr.com) for their encouragement, and once again, to my beloved [feoplepeel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/pseuds/FeoplePeel) for letting me muck about in her AUverse.

Derry was not made for bed rest. 

She couldn't deny the need for it, not after the third dizzy spell in as many days, but she resented it all the same. Stuck in bed the last week like some pampered pet, enormously pregnant and bored, with only the prospect of at least three more weeks stretching in front of her. Whatever position she tried to twist her clumsy, heavy body into, no matter how many pillows she jammed around herself, she couldn't get comfortable. With only so much room to spare and still growing in leaps and bounds, the baby was as cranky as she was. Without fail, the second she'd finally drop into something like real sleep, a sharp little elbow or a tiny pointy knee inevitably found its way to some organ or another, jerking her awake. Honestly, Derry couldn't blame the kid, cramped as it was, though she often thought with wistful fondness to the days when her body was still hers with only its own demands to deal with. All babies were tiny tyrants, she was finding, and hers was already laying siege. 

No wonder she'd taken to snapping at anyone who came near. Even Zevran had abandoned her, and Derry had been certain he was made of sterner stuff than that. It seemed that the only people who remained unfazed by her constant crankiness and near tantrums were the two very souls who had put her _here_ in the first place. The healer was the only woman in Thedas who could match her in terms of grumpiness on a daily basis; Marilese simply didn't care what Derry snapped at her. But Alistair got the very worst of it, which he bore with a sort of patient cheerfulness that bordered on the insulting. It never seemed to matter how often she growled at him - Derry suspected he was vying for sainthood and she was to be his ultimate trial. (In the privacy of her head - the only place that still belonged to her and her alone - she felt guilty. If she'd been allowed to walk farther than the privy, maybe then she'd be able to occupy her mind with things other than how _miserable_ she was, instead of taking it out on the one person trying his damnedest to please her. Derry hoped actual motherhood would be better than pregnancy; between the awful months of retching and now, there had only been a tiny sliver of time when she had managed the ‘glowing’ stage everyone seemed to wax poetic over.)

She'd fallen into a sullen silence two days ago after her appetite, healthy and hardy from the moment she'd become a Warden, failed her. Nothing sounded good, nothing tasted good, nothing smelled good. Despite Marilese insisting that it was normal, it still felt like a betrayal, one more item to add to the list of _things no longer under her control_. And, for some reason, it was the one thing that truly seemed to bother Alistair. He could take the grumbling and the surliness in stride; getting kicked out of his own bed night after night didn't even phase him. But the moment she refused anything but the barest morsels of food, a worried little furrow appeared at his forehead. When it happened the next day, the furrow grew deeper. 

And now, on the dawn of the third, running on two hours restless sleep with the clatter of dishes outside her door, Derry didn't relish another fight. It wasn't any use. She was going to be pregnant forever and utterly useless and he was better off finding a new lover who didn't have swollen hands and ankles who would greet him with smiles and kisses instead of complaints and --

“Ancestors, Alistair, did you bring the entire kitchen with you?” He stopped, the enormous tray wobbling precariously in his grip. Plates and bowls piled high, overflowing with every kind of breakfast one could imagine. Bacon and eggs, toast, oatmeal and berries and…

A sharp, unexpected little laugh bubbled out of her, startling them both. It was probably the lack of sleep that did it, but the sight of Alistair's dear face flushing a deep pink over the mountain of food was tremendously funny. She tried to stop it, she really did, but the laughter poured out until she was half blinded with tears. 

“What did you _do_?” Derry wheezed when she'd finally caught her breath. The pink hadn't faded from his cheeks (and really, it was a rare treat these days to make him blush like he had when they'd first met) but his eyes were bright. 

“Enticing you?” he asked hopefully, giving the tray a little jiggle. At the sound of clinking cutlery, Derry had to slap a hand over her mouth to stop the giggle, turning it into a mirthful little hiccup. “Is it working?”

“I know that I've been eating for two and all, but merciful Stone, did you honestly think I could even put a dent in any of that?” 

“I wasn't expecting you to eat _all_ of it. Just...maybe if you had a selection, something would grab your attention.” 

The warm, bright little space in the center of her chest - the one that always seemed to be focused solely on this man - blazed. Derry pushed herself into a sitting position (no small feat these days) and held out her hand. 

“Put down that ridiculous tray,” she said gently, unsuccessfully trying to hide a grin. “It's not a lack of choice, love, as much as it is your enormous child vacationing right on top of my stomach.” He stashed the tray on the desk and sat on the edge of the bed, eyes as huge and eager as a mabari pups. Derry grabbed a handful of his shirtfront and tugged him closer, until she could slide her arms around his neck. 

“I might have gone a little overboard,” he said sheepishly. 

“You think?” The sad mabari eyes intensified and Derry gave up all hope of dignity. She laughed again and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, leaning her forehead against his temple. “Only a _little_ overboard?”

“I've never gone halfway with you before. Why start now?” he asked softly. Derry sighed and pulled away just far enough to cup his face in her hands. 

“I've been terrible. You've been a darling, and I've been _terrible_.”

“You've had your reasons.” Alistair leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose, smoothing the sleep-tangled hair back off her face and tucking it behind her ear fondly.

“Ah, but you're not denying it.” She sighed again. “Fine. You win. I suppose it would be a shame to let all this food go to waste.” A slow smile spread over his face, and she gave him a warning glance. “Don't look so smug.” Snagging a piece of toast from one of the overladen plates, she handed it to him, brows raised. “You're going to help me. I hope you're hungry.”


End file.
